Real world investments. Today: hydrogen

Cryptocurrency is fun. But the serious money are either in the bank or in stocks. Yeah, I have kept stocks for some 15 years now. And every time I look at crypto it is my stock background I get influences from. I haven't touched this theme before so this is the first. The occasion is a deal that my biggest holding just signed yesterday. It will be a first for many of you so I will take it step by step.

NEL hydrogen

NEL has its roots back to 1927. It is a spinoff from Norsk hydro, a power and fertilizer producer. Hydro developed huge hydrogen plants to produce ammonia for their fertilizers.

Robust and reliable solutions for vast quantities of element no. 1. That's NEL.

I stumbled across this company by accident. They got listed on the Oslo stock exchange 3 years ago. It was acquired by a company where I had some stake. So adding to it at a a low price and getting into "green" stocks was only natural. And I liked the prospect of zero emission transportation, which was the company's main objective by being publicly listed.

Since they have acquired several companies to expand growth and extend the offering. H2 logic, hyme as, rotoboost and proton onsite has been building blocks to offer the worlds most comprehensive hydrogen production solutions. The latest addition, Proton, has the worlds most advanced Proton exchange membrane (pem) technology. And has been the greatest acquisition to date.

Enter Nikola (no, not Tesla;-))

Nikola is an American company that specializes in innovating the long haul transportation industry. They showed their first serious product about a year ago. The event can be seen here:

And yes, this sucker is powered by hydrogen.

The problem with hydrogen fueling

1. It does not exist! Except from in California, Denmark and a few cities in Europe.
2. It is power hungry!
3. Expensive

So there is no option but going BIG. And I mean seriously big. So starting off with long haul trucks makes sense.

NEL + Nikola = ❤️❤️❤️

Yes! Finally! The news is out! Nel has been chosen as the supplier of some huge plants. This is no small demonstration project. It's going to be the largest h2 refueling network to date!

• 32 ton yearly capacity!
• it will cover USA and parts of Canada

(Oslo, 15 November 2017) Nel ASA (Nel, OSE:NEL) has received a purchase order from Nikola Motor Company (Nikola Motor) for two demo refueling stations to provide hydrogen to Nikola’s fleet of prototype hydrogen trucks. The purchase order is the initial part of an exclusive partnership aiming at developing low-cost renewable hydrogen production and fueling sites for the potential development of 16 large-scale sites with a capacity up to 32 tons of hydrogen per day.

Source: http://nelhydrogen.com/news/enters-into-exclusive-partnership-with-nikola-awarded-initial-purchase-order-for-two-demo-stations/

And more info is available in the Nikola press release: https://dxtn4vayafzin.cloudfront.net/nikolamotor/uploads/press_release/pdf/21/nikola_motor_111517.pdf

It was an anticipated move. They have been flirting with each other for some time. And it is fun to be part of a innovative company that makes it possible to make some real change.

What's more: the Nikola chain will be open to the public, which makes hydrogen a viable fuel alternative for Americans. So far only California has a network of h2 stations. But these stations will be orders of magnitude larger than the typical private fleet needs. Which will accommodate lower price point and a larger audience.

In other news surrounding Nikola, they also recently signed a purchase agreement with powercell of Sweden. Powercell develops fuel cell stacks for stationary and mobile applications.

Great news for us who want to change and not just talk about it. There is an abundance of cheap, renewable energy all around us. Solar has really picked up speed the last two years and wind is also abundant. To make renewables work, you need to store it somewhere. Hydrogen is perfect for that. It's much more flexible than a battery and don't carry excessive weight.